


Where The Lines Overlap

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:33:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Louis didn't think that way. Louis thought in absolutes, black and white. And when the band was put on hiatus, life as he knew it had ended. He had no back-up plan, no plans B, C, D. Plan A was to be in a band with his four mates forever, and when that ended, so had he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where The Lines Overlap

"When does it stop?"

Zayn looked over at Harry, whose eyes were fixed out the window. It had been so long since they had spoken, Zayn had forgotten what he sounded like. His voice was deeper, rougher. Like he had spent too many nights screaming and crying and his vocal chords had never recovered.

"When does what stop?"

"This feeling." Harry's eyes were glazed, exhausted and desperate for an answer.

Zayn didn't have one. He never did.

*****  
Louis took to the bed two weeks after the hiatus was announced. 2014 was to be a year of "recovery and reflection". The five boys barely made it through the long ten months of touring. The first week, it was all exciting and new; no interviews, no studio time, no professional obligations whatsoever.

Harry and Louis had gone to a chateau in France and had managed to stay completely off the grid. But the week after Christmas, right after the first of the year, the realization hit Louis. This wasn't an extended holiday. He wasn't going to return to London and be reunited with his mates and return to business as usual. And something inside of him broke.

Harry tried to understand, he truly did. But after several weeks of the same pithy reassurances, he stopped. He became angry. And he began to yell.

"This isn't just happening to you!" He declared, one bitterly cold night in February. He had had enough of this moping and he was going to force Louis to join him for a romantic goddamned Valentine's dinner whether he wanted to be there or not. He had spent his birthday alone on the couch, watching The Notebook on mute. He wasn’t going to do the same tonight.

He rolled Louis onto his back and yanked him up by his arms. Louis fell forward and laid his head in his lap, his arms dangling off the bed. Harry tried a few more times, but the older boy just wouldn't budge.

"Do you not see how fucking selfish you're being!" Harry sobbed. "You are being a miserable prat and I can't take it anymore!" He collapsed by the foot of the bed, his sobs shaking his entire body. Louis lifted his head up and stared, his eyes completely void of the sparkling blue everyone had known. A bland gray color now, they stared at the broken boy on the floor.

"I have no reason to leave this bed." He said softly.

Harry looked at him in shock, tears spilling down his cheeks. "But what about me? Don't I matter?"

Louis stared, unresponsive. He lay back down and closed his eyes, leaving the boy at the foot of the bed to wail.

*****  
Liam tried to help. He came over on a sunny day in June. Harry apologized for only one place setting at the table. "There's no need for two." They sat in silence, eating the lunch Harry had made. It had been months since he had cooked. All Louis was willing to eat was Top Ramen. Harry used to stay in bed with him while he ate. Once he accepted the other boy wasn't willing to leave the bed to eat at the table with him, or to even converse with him, he would drop off the food, and come back 30 minutes later.

He opened the door to the bedroom and looked in. Harry assured him Louis showered three times a week and the bedsheets were changed often. Harry still shared the bed with him. Liam wasn't sure who it benefitted.

He crawled into the bed and laid with his face close to Louis's. He pressed his hand to the other boy's chest as if to transfer life and happiness and peace into his body. Louis looked up. Liam was shocked that his eyes truly were gray.

"Lou-Lou." He whispered. "How can I make this better?"

Louis shook his head. "You can't."

*****  
It had been exactly six months since Louis had fallen into this depression and not a single person could help. Niall had even come back from Ireland, but finally left in tears, saying he would be back when Louis was.

Harry had called Jay from the start, asking for her guidance. She had come every couple weeks to try and rouse her baby boy. But even the threat of hospitalization held no merit, because if one is not suicidal or homicidal, the hospital cannot commit involuntarily. And Louis was neither. He was simply nearly catatonic.

Jay left one humid day in August. She hugged Harry as she walked to the car. "You are the greatest thing to ever happen to my baby." She wanted to say more. But they both knew what she had to say was nothing he wanted to hear.

Harry went back into the house and collapsed onto the couch. He had no energy, his skin moist from the humidity. He walked into the bedroom and saw Louis, underneath a duvet. It didn’t matter that the air was so thick, it could be cut with a knife.

He had tried so hard for the past six months. Louis got out of bed to use the washroom and for nothing else. His skin was gray and he had lost a significant amount of weight from eating nothing but sodium-enriched noodles. When he ate at all.

Harry tried to make him other foods one week in July. Simple foods, but foods he loved. Grilled cheese and soup. Pasta. But when anything but noodles were put in front of him, he would simply stare. And Harry would take the plate away, throw the contents in the trash, and stand over the sink and cry.

The four boys had discussed getting back together purely for Louis’s sake, but they all were enjoying the break. Except Harry, who went to sleep every night praying that tomorrow his Louis would return. And every morning he would wake up being disappointed. They didn't see the daily struggle Harry went through. They didn't understand what it was like to see the person they loved waste away mere feet from you. They didn't understand the sense of helplessness Harry dealt with daily. They didn't see it and to them, it almost didn't exist.

Harry no longer tried to revitalize the other boy. He had started going out more often, seeing his friends again. He had no idea how to help the boy he loved, and he was just tired of trying.

His therapist had told him this wasn't a sign of giving up on Louis; it was a sign of not giving up on himself. It didn't mean he didn't spend the first few outings with a fire in the pit of his stomach, guilt consuming every second. And he couldn't help to think that was the reason Louis finally stopped talking.

He slipped under the duvet, immediately suffocated. Louis was staring at him. Louis always stared. He stopped communicating in May. It was raining and the last thing he said to Harry was, “Take the brolly in the hall closet."

But now it was August and Harry just wanted Louis. Wanted his laugh, wanted his crinkly-eyed smile, wanted his arms, hands, lips. But most of all, he just wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to hear him singing in the morning, wanted to hear him talking loudly on the phone, wanted to hear him scream at the football match on the telly, wanted to hear him whisper into his neck at night. He didn't know what to do to make this happen. And Louis wasn't helping him to figure it out.

"Louis. Why are you so sad?" It was such a pedestrian question, but it was the only one he hadn’t asked yet. He didn't expect an answer, he had stopped wishing.

"Because I'm not on stage. I'm not singing. What do I have if I'm not singing?"

Harry didn't understand this. But Harry had never struggled like Louis. He had never truly put his entire being into the band. He knew it would end one day and always kept that tucked in the back of his mind.

But Louis didn't think that way. Louis thought in absolutes, black and white. And when the band was put on hiatus, life as he knew it had ended. He had no back-up plan, no plans B, C, D. Plan A was to be in a band with his four mates forever, and when that ended, so had he.

Harry watched him silently, tears rolling down his cheeks as Louis realized the words he was thinking were escaping his lips. He left out a loud sigh. He threw the duvet off and laid his head against the other boy’s chest, the enormity of the situation finally hitting him. He gasped for air between his sobs as Harry traced circles up and down his back.

They stayed that way for a long while, Louis beginning to let go of what was. Harry offered no words, just his arms and his chest and his shirt for Louis to shed his tears on. Finally when the sobs reduced to sniffles, Harry pulled Louis’s face into his hands. He kissed over the swollen eyelids and tear-stained cheeks. “It’ll get better. I know it will.” Harry had no idea if he was telling the truth. He had no idea if it would indeed get better. But the aching in his heart had finally subsided for the first time in months. It had stopped.


End file.
